The Sunday Poem: Zachary Kluckman... Reflecting Over Coffee

Those moments are gone. Her lips have left the cup...but the imagined kiss remains. Delicious. Every imagined minute of it.

Zach Kluckman's anthology of New Mexican poets, Earthships: A New Mecca Poetry Collection, was a finalist in the 2008 NM Book Awards. Past publications include the New York Quarterly, Dos Passos Review, Cutthroat and more, as well as several anthologies.

Reflecting Over Coffee

“…ghosts cannot slip back
Inside the body’s drum…” ~ Yusef Komunyakaa

Fingers cannot return their touch
Either, yet
We hold onto the memories of them
Hesitant to wash our cups
For fear of losing something elemental
As if such a thing could happen
Your kiss be lost to soap and scouring pad
Your heart stop beating when the clock
On the microwave dies
As if these earthly items we pass around
Each night on our way
To the bathroom, somehow
Held the power to deliver
A crucial death scene in the kitchen
An actor’s dream, a monologue
Prepared post-humously by the poorly attired
Specters we vaguely remember from silver screens
A wish that the right words
Just once
Would find our lips in service
To our thoughts

Zachary, thanks for this wonderful poem. I was reminded of a piece of art I once saw in a museum in Hartford, Connecticut. Two identical clocks were side by side on a wall, one ticking slightly faster than the other. The viewer knew the faster clock would stop, leaving its partner behind. It was made by an artist whose partner was dying of AIDS. "Hesitant to wash our cups..." Powerful stuff.